Laws of Heredity

The factors are separated during gamete formation, each gamete having only one factor and which is not influenced by the other factor though both had remained together (Now, this is called the first law).

Law of independent assortment:

Factors for different characters behave independently. No two characters need to be always different. Different combinations of characters could be brought about. For example, a tall plant with yellow seeds if crossed with a dwarf plant with green seeds could produce in the F2 generation, tall plants with yellow seeds, tall plants with green seeds, dwarf plants with yellow seeds and dwarf plants with green seeds. This opened any possibilities in hybridization. Man could combine all the desired advantageous characters in his commercial crops and farm animals. He could get new combinations of desirable characters and eliminate undesirable characters. Thus a new branch of science called heredity or genetics was born and proved to be a boon to agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and other fields.

Many improvements in science come about and what Mendel called factors are now known as genes.